longhaul123 wrote:
Can someone help me with this tricky question. Now this is how i evaluated the question.Lets say there are 1000 total members in a village , of which 60% = 600 have actually voted and that the poll results show that there are 71%=710 who have participated in the poll saying that they will vote in the recent election. Im not really understanding from here how do i evaluate the question . Kindly help.
Hi longhaul123,
May be you have found the reason for C to be correct, but still i will explain here.
Here is the original question with all the options.
In a recent poll, 71% of respondents reported that they cast votes in the most recent national election. Voting records show, however, that only 60% of eligible voters actually voted in that election.
Which of the following pieces of evidence, if true, would provide the best explanation for the apparent discrepancy?
A. The margin of error for the survey was plus or minus five three percentage points.
B. Fifteen percent of the survey's respondents were living overseas at the time of the election.
C. Prior research has shown that that people who actually do vote are also more likely to respond to polls than those who do not vote.
D. Many people who intend to vote are prevented from doing so by last-minute conflicts on election day or other complications.
E. Some people confused the national election with other recent elections when responding to the poll.
This is paradox question. The paradox is that 71% of the folks took survey that they voted in the election and yet when election results came it only showed 60%. So this is the paradox.
Now to get this question right we should not assume that all those who participated in the survey voted. Survey is taken for some folks and from their response we extrapolate the finding to cover the entire population. To weaken such question we need to find some fault in sample space or in the process.
Now the paradox in this question can be resolved by saying that folks who vote are more likely to respond to surveys. This means that sample space would include more folks who voted thus skewing survey.
So C is the only option that resolves the paradox.
Hope it helps